Share This Story!

Screen Actors Guild Awards: Casting The Actor

A row of finished statuettes, a form known as The Actor, await transportation to the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards, to be held Jan. 27, 2013, at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. The bronze statue is 16 inches high and weighs 12 pounds.  The Actor was sculpted by Edward Saenz and designed by Jim Heimann and Jim Barrett.  Burbanks American Fine Arts Foundry has been creating the individually numbered statuettes since the SAG Awards' inception in 1995. 

Post to Facebook

{#
#}

CancelSend

Sent!

A link has been sent to your friend's email address.

Posted!

A link has been posted to your Facebook feed.

Join the Nation's Conversation

Screen Actors Guild Awards: Casting The Actor

A row of finished statuettes, a form known as The Actor, await transportation to the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards, to be held Jan. 27, 2013, at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. The bronze statue is 16 inches high and weighs 12 pounds.  The Actor was sculpted by Edward Saenz and designed by Jim Heimann and Jim Barrett.  Burbanks American Fine Arts Foundry has been creating the individually numbered statuettes since the SAG Awards' inception in 1995.  Dan MacMedan, USA TODAY

Enrique Guerrero, foundry operator, cranks up a cauldron to the required 1,900 degrees to melt the bronze. The Screen Actors Guild Award, known as The Actor, is a solid bronze statuette made using a lost-wax casting process at the American Fine Arts Foundry in Burbank, Calif. Dan MacMedan, USA TODAY

Molds for The Actor come out of the oven at close to 1,900 degrees to match the temperature of the molten bronze that gets poured into them. About 93 pounds of wax will be used to create the molds, and 225 pounds of ceramic mold material will be incorporated. Dan MacMedan, USA TODAY

Foundry workers Enrique Guerrero, left, Adalid Orozco, and Jose Sosa, don fireproof suits to begin the pouring process. Ten craftspeople produce the awards from scratch in a period of three to four weeks. Dan MacMedan, USA TODAY

Molten bronze begins to cool in ceramic molds. Each statuette is created using the art of the lost-wax casting process, for which the oldest architectural and literary evidence has been traced back 5,000 years to India. Dan MacMedan, USA TODAY

David Marciano, nominated this year for best ensemble performance in a drama from the hit TV series 'Homeland,' poses with a finished statuette. Since 1995, the first year of the SAG Awards, 765 Actors have been awarded. Dan MacMedan, USA TODAY

Servanto Santamaria does some tooling work on the bare bronze statuette. The 14-step process, known as the lost-wax process, uses 93 pounds of wax to create the molds in which the statuettes are cast this year. Dan MacMedan, USA TODAY

The Actor regards two masks he holds, representing comedy and drama. What is he thinking? The story goes that it is only after he reads a script that he'll know which one to put on. Dan MacMedan, USA TODAY

A row of finished statuettes await packing for the SAG Awards show. The first statuette ever cast is on display at the SAG-AFTRA headquarters in Los Angeles; the extras are kept on hand in a vault for future use. Dan MacMedan, USA TODAY